


we are all just walking each other home

by thisparticularlight



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Found Families, Gen, canon character death (jack crusher), friendship fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-15
Updated: 2014-08-15
Packaged: 2018-02-13 05:45:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2139276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisparticularlight/pseuds/thisparticularlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Riker and Crusher get closer when she begins to notice how closely Riker pays attention to Wesley’s studies, and how well he takes care of him. He always makes time for him, always takes the moment or two that he needs to center himself and soften his tone to answer Wesley’s questions - and Crusher notices that. </p>
<p>Wesley will never have a father, and Will will never have a child, but what else is the Enterprise about, other than finding a family to build out of the people around you?</p>
            </blockquote>





	we are all just walking each other home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tinyinkstainedbird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinyinkstainedbird/gifts).



It’s a breach of protocol, but when Jack dies, Picard gives the bridge to his first officer so that he can tell Beverly first, alone.

He comes to her sickbay, asks the _Stargazer_ ’s CMO if he can have a moment alone with her. In doing so, he’s tipped his hand: she knows, right away, but she still waits for him to say it, as if it won’t become real until the sentence hits the air.

When he finally says it, affording the words all the straightforward gravity they deserve - “there’s been an accident, and Jack has been killed” - they are both surprised by how little force seems to back them. She sways a little bit, stands on her feet, and then swallows, steels herself, and looks straight at him: “We need - I need to tell Wesley. I need you with me.”

He knows that if it were anyone else, if he weren’t desperately in love with her, he would tell her no, no, this isn't my arena, we should find the ship's counselor - but it _isn’t_ anyone else, he _is_ desperately in love with her, and he owes Jack Crusher this, and so he goes to Jack’s boy.

Jean-Luc Picard has more or less made a career out of watching the way that emotions play across an officer’s face when hearing terrible news. He’s gotten good at it: he can pick up the cues and give them back what they need, bolster them long enough to get back to their quarters where they can collapse into the ship’s counselor’s much warmer, more capable arms. This is the duty of a captain, and he will do this, however draining, for every officer, every time.

Wesley is five years old.

Wesley is not an officer. His grief isn’t painted in the shades that Picard learned how to speak, forty years and forty million miles ago, sitting in an Academy classroom with afternoon sun spilling through the windows as he sat through an ethics class that taught him how to describe death within the rules. Wesley’s grief is a watercolor, more feeling than pigment, more stain than shape, as Picard sits uselessly waiting to explain a blueprint that Wesley will not understand for a decade.

“He won’t… he’s not going to hurt anymore,” Beverly murmurs, holding Wesley so close to her that she worries whether she won’t break him.

“Okay,” Wesley murmurs, his face buried in the fabric bunching over his mother’s shoulder. Picard thinks about how tiny his ribcage must be, how mightily this boy’s body heaves as he cries for his father. Wesley’s birthday is next week, Jack had told him on their way down to the planet. Jack bought him a sweater, but it was too big - he’s always caught off guard by how little Wes still is, he told Picard, laughing to himself about changing up the supplements Beverly’s added to the family’s breakfasts - and so he had been planning, after the mission ended, to swap it out for a size that might fit better. Now, Wesley’s body seems to contain everything.

“You are… being very brave right now,” Picard adds, resting his hand gingerly on the little boy’s shoulder. “Just like your father was.”

It’s not bravery. He doesn’t know who he’s consoling, there - Wesley, who must know for a damn fact that of all the things he’s feeling, bravery is not among them? Beverly, who must feel right now like the least brave and most alone person in the universe? Himself, in spite of how deeply he knows that to experience a loss that you did not choose is not bravery? They’re empty words, and he wonders how long it will take Wesley to hate him for them.

From that day on, Picard shies away from children.

+

It isn’t a matter of resolving her grief, not exactly. There’s nothing to resolve: Jack is never coming back. He will always be gone, and always the _same_ gone. Beverly will never learn anything new about him: not as a husband, not as a partner, not as a father, not as an officer. He will always be absent, the exact same static memory cut into the exact same hearts where he was supposed to live, and this still life will always exist alongside their son, a boy who is growing and changing so quickly she can hardly keep up.

When someone says the word “Dad”, Wesley will think of Jack in a way that is two-dimensional, constructed of broadly painted memories, with stories and imaginings filling all the gaps in between. Wesley will know that his father graduated from the Academy in ‘45, but he will not sit on Jack’s lap and hear about how he painted the natatorium door shut the night before graduation for their senior prank - these details will be lost, because Wesley is too young for Beverly to smother him with them the way she wants to, and she lies awake at night fearing that by the time he is old enough, she will have forgotten. The lines in Jack’s face that Beverly has spent her life memorizing aren’t going to spring to Wesley’s mind in the middle of an all-nighter, doing homework and trying to think his way through a physics problem. No, the magnitude of her loss means she cannot set it aside, a neatly checked box marked “resolved”.

She goes home.

“Beverly,” her grandmother whispers, holding her face in her wrinkled, papery hands, and Beverly closes her eyes against fingertips that still have _beautiful_ written all over them.

“You remember Wesley,” she says, absurdly because of _course_ Felisa does, and she realizes that she will spend the rest of her life carving out places for her son with a voice that rings out false and too bright, trying to hide all the holes so that he can step neatly over them.

Five months after Jack dies, Beverly stumbles into the kitchen one morning, early, before the sun, to stare out Felisa’s kitchen window and make a cup of coffee. Wes is still sleeping in the upstairs bedroom, his five-year-old mouth slackjawed and a tiny hand thrown over his eyes. Getting him into bed last night had been a battle after he and Felisa had spent the entire night watching holovids and eating caramel corn, and he will likely sleep late into the morning as his system flushes out all that sugar.

All at once, she realizes that last night’s bedtime battle is the first time in ages, maybe since Jack died, that she and Wes had screamed and cried at each other over something that wasn’t Jack. She realizes that this might approximate normal life with a normal five-year-old as a normal mother, and thinks maybe the reason she missed realizing it the first time around is that she hadn’t expected to ever circle back here again; she’d thought these everyday milestones were gone forever.

No, it is not a matter of resolving her grief. It is a matter, she knows, of carving out space, that’s true - but not just space enough in her life for Wes to follow her. It is not a matter of simply requesting two-bedroom quarters so that Wes can come too. It is a matter of, alongside the grief that she is realizing she will never scrub from her heart, making room for her boy to have a happy, healthy life. One that Jack would have been happy to see.

+

All things considered, she does a good job, but she does not do it alone, and sometimes help comes from the strangest, sweetest places.

“I’ll take responsibility for his coursework,” Will Riker says in a staff meeting, picking up the pieces of Wesley’s life in a voice as clipped and detached as if it’s another task written into that day’s duty roster. Beverly opens her mouth to protest - shouldn’t that be her? or at least someone who shrinks a little under the weight of the assignment? - until she sees the way Picard smiles at hearing it.

“That would be appreciated, Number One,” he says, lingering over the acknowledgement for a few long seconds that, to a friend as old as Beverly, speak volumes.

“Happy to do it,” Will says, smiling first at Picard, who seems to understand, and then at Beverly, who absolutely does not.

After the meeting, she stops Will, grabbing him by the forearm to keep him in the observation lounge after the others have gone.

“Thank you,” she says, looking very studiously at the table. “I appreciate your offer.”

“Well, I appreciate Wesley’s contributions.” Will grins at her, and she remembers the Traveler’s visit and how Will stepped between Wes and the captain: _he tried to tell me, sir. I didn’t listen_. She had admired him that day, surprised even then by his willingness to protect Wesley, who hadn’t exactly been in a position to pay back the favor. “If we’re going to be a ship that houses families, we better be ready to give them what we need.”

“That’s my thought, too,” Beverly agrees, surprised by the warmth she feels radiating toward Will.

“If it’s all right with you, I’d like to set up meetings with you. Weekly, maybe? Progress reports, to make sure he’s successful in school and in… well, in anything… else.”

“I’d like that,” she nods, and they set up a time to meet about Wesley’s first navigation unit.

+

“Hi,” Will says, poking his head in around Beverly’s office door a week later. “Do you have a second? It’s about Wes.”

“What is it?” she asks, standing up quicker than he can say _it’s not a big deal_. She keeps the panic out of her voice, but he can see her back going rigid, see the tightness in her arms and legs as she whirls around to face him. He swallows and tugs down his tunic.

“Nothing. I just have to work a little late covering the swing shift.”

She blinks. “What does that have to do with my son?”

“Well, nothing, really. I just have to reschedule our meeting for Wesley’s progress report, that’s all.”

“Oh.” She blinks again. “Of… of course.” She’s known first officers who wouldn’t dream of meeting with her in person, let alone of coming to her in advance to arrange a reschedule. Will Riker, it would seem, with his bright blue eyes and earnest face, still catches her off guard.

“He’s doing well, Doctor.” The sincerity on Will’s face when he looks at her is almost blinding. It reminds her, she realizes, looking down and smiling to herself, of her son. “I… I would never spring anything bad on you this way. I just wanted to let you know.”

“Thank you,” she replies, catching her wits, and they plan to meet the following evening, after they both get off shift.

+

She knocks on his door right on schedule. Five minutes early, really, but who’s counting; she doubts he’ll notice, but she’s never been late for anything involving Wesley and she’s not going to start now.

“Come in,” Will calls.

Beverly sets down her things across from him, sitting on the other side of his desk and feeling, somehow, like she’s landed herself in the principal’s office. “So…” she begins, never having had a meeting like this before with someone who was also a colleague, and not really knowing how to start. “How are... things?”

“Good,” Will starts, nodding and pulling a file out from his desk stuffed too full of papers to even close properly. Beverly recognizes her son’s handwriting, tight and precise, and notices that Will’s handwriting is oddly similar. She looks up to say something about it, but realizes that Will hasn’t yet torn his eyes away from leafing through all of Wesley’s assignments. “Really, really good, Doctor.” He's flipping through Wesley's papers, looking for something as he skims the pages.

“You can call me Beverly,” she says slowly, thinking back to the beginning, when she sharply corrected any assumed familiarity between them. “If you want.”

That brings his eyes up to look at her. “Okay,” he replies, after a pause. “I think I’d like that. Sounds like we’re going to be getting to know each other pretty well, here, anyway.”

“Yes, it seems like it.”

“Well, _Beverly_ , I’m afraid that this meeting might be quite boring. I don’t think I’m telling you anything you don’t already know when I say that Wesley is an outstanding student. He’s just… he’s excelling in all of his work, and as far as temperament goes, I honestly couldn’t ask for a more motivated, driven student.”

“He’s always been motivated,” Beverly says fondly, and Will nods.

“He’s bright,” he says, grinning and staring down at the files full of Wesley’s work, shaking his head. He's found the page he's looking for, a star chart with lines of equations scribbled onto the back with arrows going every which way toward the map. “Look at this. He’s so damn smart. Part of me feels like maybe he shouldn’t even be here, but he’s got Data and Geordi, at least, and at least this gives him a place to get his hands dirty, you know?”

It’s been a long time since Beverly has gotten to see her son through the eyes of someone who is as awed by him as she is, every day. Seeing Will appreciate the way that Wesley uses his intellect as kindling to push himself and work even harder, rather than as permission to relax into excellence, makes a surge of affection for both of them swell up in her chest.

“I know,” she murmurs. “I know I’m a bit biased, speaking as a mother, but I think this is the right place for him. At least for now.”

He grins even more widely at her. “I think so too. Beverly.”

+

After a year, Beverly is forced to admit that Will has proven indispensable. Under Will’s supervision, Wesley has found himself on away missions, manning the conn, and wearing a shiny single pip that Beverly watches him put away with painstaking care each night. She knows that ultimately these are Picard’s decisions, but she also knows that Picard makes his decisions based on the options brought to him by his senior staff.

“Wesley leaves next month, doesn’t he?” Picard asks Beverly one morning over one of the shared breakfasts that have become a comfortable, friendly habit, reaching across the table for a croissant that he promptly begins shredding.

“Yes. 39 days from now, actually, not that anyone in our apartment is counting down, or anything.” Beverly grins. “He’s so excited.”

Picard shakes his head, looking down as if Beverly can’t see him glowing when he lowers his eyes. “I can only imagine. What an exciting time, for him.”

“Yes,” she repeats, frowning a bit as she brings her coffee mug to her lips.

“And school’s going well?”

“As far as I can tell, it seems to be going fantastically, although I’m a little more hands-off than I used to be.”

“Oh?”

“Well, Will takes care of him,” Beverly explains. Immediately after she’s said the words, she realizes that they are true, and a little color comes into her cheeks. “I mean that he takes care of his schoolwork. He's getting older now, you know.”

Picard graces her with an outright, open-mouthed smile at that. “I knew, Beverly. How is that going?”

“Well, I think. Will only ever has good things to say about him, anyway.” Beverly sighs. “He’s all ready to leave, I suppose.”

“That’s good,” Picard says slowly, realizing that the ice here is thin but feeling like he needs to slide out anyway. “That’s still the plan, isn’t it?”

“Yes, I just… as it gets closer and closer I’m realizing how much I’m not ready to let him go.”

“You must,” Picard says softly, and she sets her teacup down sharply to look at him.

“I know that.” The warmth has slipped out of her voice, and he knows that this chill isn’t quite directed at him, but he’ll be damned if he has any idea how to trace it.

“Do you?”

“I have known it since he was nine years old,” Beverly replies stiffly, both true and not true at the same time. “That doesn’t make it easier.”

“I know it’s hard,” he begins, and she raises her eyebrows at him. “What?”

She shakes her head. “You don’t.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You don’t know what it’s like, to think about your child going away,” she accuses, and there’s nothing he can say to that: she’s right. He doesn’t. “It’s as if something important, something _vital_ , is outside of yourself and there’s nothing you can do to keep it safe, nothing you can do to make sure it doesn’t…”

“Wesley _is_ safe,” he insists, feeling helpless to say anything else, and she shakes her head.

“Now. Maybe. For now.”

“None of us can ever ask for anything more than _now_ ,” he says softly, and she sighs and covers her face with one hand.

“Hey,” he murmurs, circling the table to sit down next to her and wrap his arm around her. She leans her head into his shoulder, one of the only people who has ever done that with him instinctively, and he holds on as tight as he knows how. “Beverly, it’s all right.”

“I feel as if I’ve earned more than fleeting safety,” she confesses. “I’ve given enough.”

“This universe is greedy,” he acknowledges. “We cannot give enough.” He squeezes her shoulders. “Even when it feels like, by rights, we should have already had our debts wiped clean.”

“I hate it,” she mutters. Picard has drawn so much strength over the years from those blue eyes, unwavering, like everything else about her, but softer, somehow, and always, always there. When she looks up at him to meet his gaze and he sees that her eyes are filling with tears, he lets out a gust of a sigh.

“ _Beverly_ ,” he murmurs, stroking his fingertips back from her shoulder and moving his hands to brush the hair out of her face. Their legs are touching, since he’s moved to sit closer to her; the sides of their thighs pressing together and the black of their uniform pants making it difficult to tell where he ends and where she begins. “The universe is greedy, but it also gives us what we need. It’s given Wesley what he needs.” He smiles down at her. “An excellent mother. He has an excellent mother, and a crew that loves him. He has Will.”

“Will.” Beverly smiles ruefully and presses the heels of her hands against her cheeks. “Will Riker, of all people in the world.”

“Who better?” Picard smiles.

_Jack_ , Beverly thinks, quickly and bitterly, before smoothing her fingers over her earring and envisioning smoothing over a wound that is occasionally still jagged, ten years later.

“He will do so well,” Picard tells her, reaching for her hand and turning his palm to face upward. She grabs it, more quickly than he might have expected. “So well.”

+

Will Riker shows up at her door later that day, knocking on the office just off Sickbay as if he doesn’t have anything more important to do, anyplace more important to be. Maybe he doesn’t, she thinks. God knows she doesn’t.

“I don’t know how important a progress report is going to be, at this point,” she tells him, raising her eyebrows even as her smile belies her exasperation, unable to hide how happy she is to see him for their standing appointment, Tuesdays at 1400.

“Closure is important,” he says lightly, pulling out a chair and sitting down across from her. “Did you know that your son is a damn genius?”

“Oh, I have known that for ages,” she replies, matching his tone.

“Did you know that he’s going to be absolutely unstoppable at the Academy?”

“I did.”

“Did you know that if it were anyone else, I would be worried that maybe he’s going to forget the little people?”

She sighs, raising the corner of her mouth in a smile meant to be reassuring. “Will.”

“Bev.”

“He’s not going to forget you,” she murmurs.

“I know. It’s just… strange to think about him not being here anymore, that’s all.”

“Believe me, I know.” Beverly nods. “I know.”

Will looks at her, taking in how tired and happy she looks. “How are you doing, mama?” he asks softly, and she laughs at the affectionate nickname.

“I don’t know. Up and down. So happy, and so proud, until all of a sudden I remember how unbelievably sad I am, and then I’m almost crying until I remember, you know. The happy and proud thing, again.” She shrugs. “I don’t know.”

He takes a breath, holding it in his chest and then exhaling it slowly. “I know that whatever I’m feeling isn’t anything close to anything that’s going on with you,” he tells her. “But I’m so proud of that kid I can barely handle it. I hate that he’s leaving, but it helps to think about where he’s going.” He raises his eyebrows. “Time waits for no man, you know?”

“I know.” Bev swallows and then looks up to smile at him. “Certainly not a man as bright as ours.”

It takes Will a moment to realize how thinly her smile wears on her face, how glassy her eyes are as she looks at him. “Shit,” she mutters, just as the glassiness turns into wetness and threatens to spill over her eyes. He realizes that he’s erred by coming here in hopes of her cheering him up as Wesley leaves.

“Bev,” he murmurs helplessly. She’s the strongest woman he knows, and he’s painted her in shades of black and white: fierce. Unyielding. Resilient. He watches her blink the tears away, skittering back from the edge and breathing in hard through her nose. When she speaks again, her voice is clear.

“Sorry. I told you I’m a bit out of sorts. All over the place.”

“I think that’s normal,” he says softly. “I think it would be more concerning if you weren’t.”

“It feels like before,” she says, plainly. "With Jack."  
  
He bites his lip. “It’s a loss, still, but it's nothing like before. Losing Jack was a horrible tragedy. This is… this is just a developmental milestone. It’s something Wesley wants. Something he needs.” He smiles halfheartedly. “And he’ll call you every day, I’m absolutely sure of it.”

“I know. It’s just… you get to a point where you lose so much that sometimes it’s hard to make sense of losing anything else. It takes a while to… put it in order in your mind, I suppose.”

“I understand,” he says, and then looks at her. “If it would help to talk to me, I’m happy to do it.”

She thinks back to last year, to Will Riker describing himself as “happy to do it” when Picard asked him to supervise Wesley’s studies. How lucky the Crushers have been, she thinks, to have found someone so happy to afford so much help. “I wouldn’t know what to say,” she admits softly, looking down at her hands folded in her lap. “Or where to begin. There’s so much.”

“I can think of an obvious place,” he replies, just as quietly. “I imagine you don’t get to talk much about Jack to Wesley.”

She looks up at him sharply, regarding him for a few moments without saying anything, until: “No,” she murmurs finally. “No, I don’t.”

Will thinks about being nine, about his father talking endlessly to him about all the ways that he is smaller for losing his wife, somehow never quite getting around to asking Will about being smaller for losing a mother. Being fifteen, hovering dangerously close to “orphan” territory, and no one had asked him anything then, either, not even when his father sent letters. _Orbiting Starbase 22. Your mother and I came here for our honeymoon, you know that? God, Will, I miss her more than I could possibly explain_ , he’d written, not once thinking to trust that maybe his son was someone who didn’t have to be taught how to miss Betty Riker.

“I think that makes you an amazing parent,” he says slowly, training his blue eyes on hers. “But I imagine - not from direct experience, mind you - that being such a good parent would feel very lonely, sometimes.”

She nods, pressing her lips tightly together, and looks at him, this man who came out of nowhere to mean so much. “It does,” she whispers, and closes her eyes.

“You can tell me about it,” Will offers, and Beverly opens her eyes. “I don’t know if there’s anything you… anything you need to say, but if there is…”

Beverly shakes her head, her lips still tightly pressed together as tears well up again. “Just…” Her voice cracks, and so she tries again: “Just that he looks so much like Jack.”

“Oh, _Bev_.” Will Riker has spent a lot of time being confounded by Beverly Crusher, who is steely and tall and strong and quite frankly looks like she would fuck you up if you crossed her wrong and then turn around and set your nose, with stern instructions to ice it every half hour and keep your mind on your own business, thank you very much. He’s never seen her look like this: small, scared, sad, and he can’t imagine the cost of keeping this part of herself away from everyone, but when he thinks about how gladly she pays that toll, every single time, a part of him wants to build her a house that will keep her and Wesley safe and warm for the rest of her life.

“He looks so much like him, and the way he talks about the Academy, like he can’t wait to get out there and dig in… he sounds so much like Jack, and I can’t stop thinking about it. About everything. I can’t stop.”

“You don’t have to,” he tells her, wanting to reach out to grab her hand but simply not knowing how. “It’s okay to still think about it.”

“I had stopped,” she murmurs, sniffing and seeming to collect herself. “I mean, obviously I still thought about it every so often, but I had stopped thinking about it every day, and then I stopped feeling guilty about not thinking about it every day, and I figured maybe that was healing. But then Wes started wearing that Academy tunic and everything just came rushing back.” She reaches for a tissue. “And before you even ask, yes, I am talking to Deanna about all of this. It just feels good to talk about it outside her office, sometimes, too.”

“This stuff is harder when you don’t talk about it,” he agrees, and she nods.

“When Jack died, I wouldn’t talk about it to anyone at first. I didn’t know how. And so it came through in the strangest ways, at the worst times.” She gulps out a laugh. “I remember once when Wesley was very small, I’d taken him to a dance recital. I still tried to hold onto that back then, back before I realized that I couldn’t do it all, not by myself, and I had no interest in sharing anything with anyone that wasn’t Jack. Anyway, I’d taken him to the recital, and a little boy about his age fell and hit his head - not hard, not even something I went over to take a look at, but he was scared, you know? You know how kids are?” There are tears on her face now, full-on, and Will starts nodding along to sentences that he knows are rhetorical so she knows he’s listening without waiting to answer. “Okay, well, he _falls_ , and… and he’s scared, and he lets out these two big crocodile tears, and he just shrieks, _Daddy_ , and I just… I fell apart.”

“ _Jesus_ ,” he murmurs, and she jerks her head up.

“Well. What do you do,” she asks, smiling in a way that chills Will down to his very bones, “when the very worst thing that can happen, does? How do you keep going?”

“I don’t know,” he answers softly, because he doesn’t, and Beverly bites her lip.

“You know, you still have to sleep, that night,” she says, looking down. Will hasn’t ever heard her talk like this - hasn’t even heard her hint at it - but he’s always known this had to be somewhere in her, no matter how many stones covered it.

“What do you mean?” he asks, wholly convinced that he doesn’t actually want to know, but sure also that Beverly has stitched each of them up enough times to enjoy a still, small, stolen hour of comfort herself.

“I mean, after they tell you. After they tell you he’s dead. It’s not as if you get to take a time out, a break from living. You still have to… get tired, and go to bed. And wake up, that first morning. After.”

Will knows that she means _Jean-Luc_ when she says _they_ , and he knows that she means _alone_ when she says _after_. He wonders how a person comes across as much grace as Beverly brings to each day.

He thinks about the day he decided to leave Deanna for the _Potemkin_. He thinks about telling her, about the way her face shattered for the split second it took for her to remind herself to shutter it over, careful and reserved. He thinks about the first morning, looking around his bedroom and realizing what life looked like without Deanna in it, how much greyer the light looked, how much smaller the sky felt.

He thinks about the millions of feelings that flooded him when she turned around and said, “Goodbye, Will,” sixteen years ago. He thinks about the way it felt, nine years later, to experience one single feeling, too much and too bright and spiraling outward: _joy_ , rusty and out of use, but still ready to sneak right back into his heart, unbidden: somehow, across all the years and all the stars, he had found her again.

He thinks about the weight of such a fortune: how much it must be to balance out a loss that at the time felt expansive and endless - and about how Beverly still carries a weight that cannot be undone by any feeling of joy - and before long he realizes his eyes are glassing over, too.

“Now, don’t you start,” she says, uncertainly, bringing him back to himself.

“I’m sorry.” He coughs. “I just didn’t know.”

She holds out her hands, helpless. “Now you do.”

He looks back at her. “Bev.” He hadn’t meant to whisper, but so it goes. “How did you… how did you do both of these things?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean… you’re so good, you’re such a good doctor, you’re such a good officer. But you’ve also…”

“Lost so much?” She sighs. “Sure. I sure have. But you know, I’ve gotten to keep a lot along the way, too.”

He doesn’t know how to tell her: _it seems like too much to fit into one life._

She doesn’t know how to tell him: _however many twists and turns the map has taken, it’s still the only map that I have._

All of those years ago, standing in her grandmother’s upstairs bedroom and staring down at Wesley, dreaming with his hair sticking to his damp forehead, were leading up until now: up to making room for this.

“It’s never going to be worth it,” she tells Will quietly. “I will never feel like Jack’s death was anything but a tremendous waste, and I will never feel like the universe didn’t lose somebody precious when he died.” She does now what he couldn’t do earlier, and reaches across the table to grab his hand. “But when I look at Wes, it feels like maybe things can be okay anyway.” She squeezes his fingers in hers. “He’s the most important thing to me, Will. The very most important thing. And you could never understand how deeply I love the people that help him be okay anyway.”

They sit together for a few moments, under the weight of everything she’s given him, everything he’ll carry happily for her if it means she can rest for a little while.

“Thank you for talking to me about this,” she says finally, and he shakes his head and squeezes her hand back.

“Bev. Of course. Always. I was-”

“Happy to do it,” she cuts him off, laughing. “I know.”

He frowns. “Well, just as long as you know,” he says, and she lets go of his hand but not her smile.

“I had no idea,” she murmurs. “I had no idea when I met you the things that you were going to be to him.” She clears her throat, and adds, somewhat grudgingly, “To us.”

“I know,” he replies, giggling in spite of himself. “You _hated_ me.”

“You were arrogant, and a kiss-ass, and you thought you knew what was best for everyone before you’d known them for two minutes.” She raises her eyebrows. “But you took care of my son. Almost right away. You loved him, eventually.”

He falls back in his chair. “Yeah. You know, I think I did.”

“Well, that’s it. That’s everything.” She smiles and shrugs, a face that Will thinks that only a few folks on the ship have seen before now. “That’s the way into a mother’s heart.”

+

Beverly thinks that Wesley doesn’t cry for Jack, and in some ways, Will knows, that’s true. He doesn’t cry out for Jack anymore the way that Beverly does: sharp, aching spark-pangs of loss digging a deeper and deeper hole. Will also knows, though, that it’s true that Wesley has cried over Jack as a person he could have known, and did not. _The potential is what’s dead, for me,_ he explains, looking at Will across his living room and feeling a little guilty complaining about fathers. _Even the potential for him to be a total jackass._

“It’s funny,” Will replies, as long as they’re engaging in breathing sentences about parents that make them feel guilty. “I can’t tell you how many times I wished my dad was dead.”

Wesley whips his head up to look at Will. “Really?”

Kyle Riker isn’t a good man. He’s a great officer - maybe even a great man. Will will give him that, maybe. Entire civilizations owe him their lives, and so Will can give him greatness, probably. But he isn’t a good man. Will can’t ever give Kyle Riker _goodness_ , not against the list of all the things Kyle Riker wouldn’t give Will.

“Really,” he responds slowly, looking up to meet Wesley’s stare. “He was gone anyway, you know? He might as well have had a good reason.”

Wes opens his mouth to respond and realizes there’s nothing to say, because he grew up in a world where protecting your son came before anything else. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs, wishing there was a way he could help, not understanding that the softness and sweetness and brightness that he brings to everything he does is enough on its own, because Will Riker is allowed to write his name onto some small corner of Wesley’s happiness, pointing to a way that he helped give Wes all the things he couldn’t ask for at fifteen.

“Thanks,” Will acknowledges.

“I wish things could have been different for both of us,” Wesley says softly, looking at the ceiling above Will’s head. Will knows what he means, but here, now, in Will's living room the night before Wesley leaves, it's hard to wish for things to wind up too much differently than how they did. “It doesn’t seem fair, that we both got the short end of the same stick.”

Will laughs, surprised. “That’s a good way of putting it.”

When Wesley doesn’t reply, Will snaps his fingers. “Hey. Space cadet.”

“Sorry.” Wesley snaps his attention back to Will. “There’s a lot on my mind, I guess.”

“I never met your dad,” Will says. “I wish I had, because your mother’s taught me more about myself than almost anybody else on this ship. She’s the woman that loved your dad, and I know that she wouldn’t have loved anyone less than the best. He didn’t choose to leave you.”

Wesley doesn’t say anything, turns his eyes back down to stir his drink, and Will taps the table in front of him so that Wes looks up to see that famed Will Riker urgency.

“ _You_ know that too, right, Wes?”

“Of course,” Wesley replies, looking thoughtful, but not like he’s trying to convince himself. “I know… I know what it looks like when a dad chooses to leave,” he says carefully, watching Will’s eyebrows furrow and knowing that he’s heard the unspoken words: _I learned that from you_. “And so I guess that means I also know what it looks like when someone envies a guy with a dead parent.”

Will half-smiles. “You know my mom died, right?”

Wesley frowns. “I…” He stammers. “I think I knew that about your dad, that he had lost his wife. I think I remember that from when he visited.”

Will rolls his eyes. “Sounds about right.”

“Somehow I never connected that it means you lost your mom.” Wes shivers. “I can’t imagine what it would have been like if my mom had checked out, too. Like your dad.”

“That might be the greatest gift she’ll ever give you,” Will replies, punching Wesley’s arm. “You should remember that during your vast and endless travels.”

“My travels,” Wesley repeats. “I… I have to leave,” he says, testing the words out loud. “I’m leaving the Enterprise.”

Will nods. “I know. And you’re ready. I know that you are.”

“You do?”

“Well, I know that _you_ know that you’re ready.” Will shrugs. “And if _you_ know it, then it’s true.”

“What, the boy genius thing again?”

“No. It’s because you know yourself better than any of us do. Because you’re your own man. Because you are free to listen to yourself. And if you say that it’s time for you to go, then it’s time for you to go.”

“Oh.” Wesley sits, quiet, for a long time, before Will crosses the living room to a drawer underneath his bookcase and pulls out a book.

“I got you a going-away present.”

“You didn’t have to,” Wesley says, cheeks flushing, and Will rolls his eyes at the idea that anything he’s ever done for the Crushers has been about obligation.

“I know. I did it anyway.”

“‘Leaves of Grass’? Is this going to help me with schoolwork or something?”

“Hmm. Good question. Check out page forty, will you?”

Wes raises his eyebrows as if to say _can you just fucking tell me_ \- the Wesley of Will’s imagination is much more profane than Beverly’s, a lofty goal that Will attempts daily to mold - and Will laughs, gesturing impatiently but fondly down at the page. Wes shakes his head, sighs, and looks down to read.

_Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much? have you reckon’d the earth much?_   
_Have you practis’d so long to learn to read?_   
_Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?_

_Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems,_   
_You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions of suns left,)_   
_You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,_   
_You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,_   
_You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self._

“ _You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,_ ” Wesley reads aloud, after he’s finished the passage that Will has carefully underlined, just enough to highlight the passage but not enough to detract from the reading. “ _You shall listen to all sides, and filter them from your self._ ” He lowers the book to look at Will. “Thanks.”

“You have everything you need,” Will says, more softly than he has said anything to anyone in years. He thinks of his mother, who used to pack him a lunch before sending him off to third grade, and who would pat his backpack, reassuringly giving him those words as if there isn’t any reason to believe he won’t hear them forever: _you have everything you need_.

He thinks of Kyle Riker, who could look at his fifteen-year-old son, and tell him, as if it made him some sort of man: _son, this just isn’t enough_.

He thinks of Beverly Crusher, who once stood toe-to-toe with Admiral Perry to say: _he’s my son, and he needs this and I’m going to give it to him_.

“Yeah, I think you’re right,” Wesley says, smiling at Will. “I think I do have everything.” In that moment, so does Will.

Wesley shifts his weight a few times, turning toward the door and then back to look at Will, unsure, until Will scoffs and mutters “Oh, for crying out loud,” and pulls Wesley to him, wrapping him up in a rough hug.

“You’re going to be great,” Will murmurs, voice rough. It’s harder still to say, but he thinks about how difficult it was to grow up never hearing it: “And I’m proud of you.”

+

Beverly’s a proud woman. She’s not afraid or ashamed of that, and so on the occasions where she does accept help, gratitude sometimes comes harder than it should.

_Thank you for helping me raise my son_ , she practices silently in the turbolift on the way to Will’s quarters. _Thank you for helping me raise my son_.

She takes a deep breath, smooths her tunic, and chimes Will’s doorbell.

“Come in,” he calls, almost immediately, this man who stands constantly on guard for the people around him, and Beverly smiles to herself at how wonderfully lucky she’s been to find him before stepping in.

“Beverly! I’ve been thinking about you.” He smiles. “Trying to figure out the best way to invite you to share a glass of whiskey. Hard day.”

“Really hard,” she agrees, voice sounding strained, and he gestures to a chair.

“If there’s a way I can help, let me know,” he tells her, and she can feel how much he means it.

“Thanks,” she says, nodding and wrapping her fingers around the glass. She opens her mouth to say _you’ve done enough_ but before she can get the words out, he starts talking.

“Hey, there’s something… there’s something I need to tell you,” he says, drawing out the process of putting the whiskey back in its cabinet far longer than it really needs.

“What’s that?”

“Thank you for letting me help with Wesley,” he says, all in one long exhale. “It meant - it means a lot to me.”

“Oh, Will.” She thinks back to that day in Picard’s ready room, where Picard had told her “he has Will”. “You know, it wasn’t just you. It meant a lot to him, too.”

“I’m glad.”

There’s one last thing that has to be said, so she takes another deep breath. “And… it meant a lot to me.” She smiles, that same half-smile that he’s given to Wesley hundreds of times. “There were times, when we first got here, that it was so hard to be around Jean-Luc that I wasn’t sure we were ever going to feel like a family again, without anything missing.”

“Well, I’m glad you got there. The Crushers are my favorite family.”

“Good. Because you belong, now.” She takes a sip of whiskey, unable to meet his eyes after showing so much softness.

“Thank you,” he murmurs after a pause. “For everything.”

They share their glasses together quietly, drinking slowly and thinking about the light that had come over Wesley’s face when he was introduced to the cadets who would be taking the shuttle along with him, and about the warm, confident way he’d offered his hand to say, “Hello, I’m Wesley Crusher.”

Beverly has spent a lot of time over the years thinking about the ways her boy introduces himself to others. Over seventeen years, she’s seen lots of Wesleys. She’s seen him lonely, broken, missing something essential with neither of them sure how to point to the missing piece. She’s seen him curious, wide-eyed, desperate to learn more about whatever strange phenomenon lies in front of him. She’s seen him staring at others in hero worship, wondering to himself how he is ever going to measure up.

And now, she’s seen how he looks when he turns to smile at Will Riker in a shuttle bay, shakes his hand, and says, “see you later,” knowing that the entire universe is before him. And she’s seen how Will Riker looks when he smiles back and says, “keep your nose clean”, and she’s felt the way her heart turns over as she finds that she believes Wesley _does_ have the entire universe before him, and that he is going to leave and that here, at the beginning of things, they are all going to stay okay anyway.

“Things are good,” Will says to her now, thinking of the moment that the two of them had watched the shuttlebay doors close, and then turned and walked together toward the bridge.

“They are,” Beverly agrees, holding her glass up as he raises his to meet it. “Things are really, really good.” And she believes it. Finally.

 

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. "We are all just walking each other home" is a quotation by Ram Dass, when questioned about the meaning of life.
> 
> 2\. "One must love life before loving its meaning, but when love of life disappears, no meaning can console us" is Albert Camus commenting on Dostoevsky.
> 
> 3\. Riker gives Wesley a copy of Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman (which could be a whole fic series in itself, let's be real). The quoted section is from Song of Myself, which I clearly do not own.


End file.
